CNN Does N.P.V.

On Friday, Rick Sanchez, the CNN late-afternoon anchor, had a nice little chat about the National Popular Vote with Tom Foreman, a CNN political correspondent. Forman’s theme was the danger of “unintended consequences.” Here’s a continuous chunk from the transcript:

FOREMAN: This [N.P.V.] does sound more like democracy, but it could produce some unintended results. For example, look at this. Right now, both parties pretty much know the playing field. For better or worse, they know where they’re strong. They know where they’re weak. They know which states they have to target and they play accordingly. Under this scenario, the whole country, as you said last night, kind of becomes a purple country. You don’t really know where the game is being played.

Now, why does that matter? Would that be good for everybody? Yes, maybe. But here’s one possibility. Under this scenario, the person with the most money to wallpaper the nation with ads could have a huge advantage.

Or maybe if we have a really close election, once each candidate cements his bases, you can end up scrambling over little pockets of voters all over the place and they could be the decisive factor. And if you don’t think the people in Boston are going to be upset to find out that the people in Spokane decided the election, they’re going to be.

Or, Rick, we could wind up with lots and lots of candidates and no one able to produce a majority. And I’ll tell you, that produces an even bigger problem.

The biggest problem that you could possibly have here, is this, Rick. What if you have 48 percent over here and you have 47 percent over here? And in the middle you have somebody who comes out of nowhere, a talk show host.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

FOREMAN: Or some celebrity or something who at the last minute gets five percent of the vote. If you have to have a majority to win, that person could hold the whole process hostage—

SANCHEZ: Wow.

FOREMAN: —with five percent of support, and then they could barter that to either side for huge concessions. I’m not saying this can’t work, Rick, but there are many details to be worked out before it would work.

SANCHEZ: It’s like this huge—it’s like this huge wrench that you just threw right into the thought process. The unintended consequences.

FOREMAN: It may be a great idea. It may be a great idea, but we’ll have to see.

SANCHEZ: We’ll have to see. Well done explanation as usual. Tom Foreman.

As I’ve said before, even seasoned political types can have a hard time getting their minds around N.P.V. Until I had my “aha!” moment, I was one. Tom Foreman seems to be another.

Let’s go through this point by point.

Right now, both parties pretty much know the playing field. For better or worse, they know where they’re strong. They know where they’re weak. They know which states they have to target and they play accordingly. Under this scenario, the whole country, as you said last night, kind of becomes a purple country. You don’t really know where the game is being played.

This is an intended consequence, not an unintended one—a feature, not a bug. With N.P.V., the parties will have to “target” voters, not (a tiny number of) states. And it will be worth your citizenly while to vote, no matter what state you live in.

The person with the most money to wallpaper the nation with ads could have a huge advantage.

The person with the most money already has a huge advantage. But N.P.V. will lessen that advantage.

Under the status quo, the moneybags candidate wallpapers the “battleground states” with ads. By concentrating his money on fewer voters—the ones whose votes are worth going after, because of where they live—he gets more bang for his bucks.

N.P.V. will do nothing to increase the ability of candidates to raise money. As it is, candidates raise and spend every penny they can. That will not change under N.P.V. What will change is that the money will be more thinly spread, lessening its impact per relevant voter.

Or maybe if we have a really close election, once each candidate cements his bases, you can end up scrambling over little pockets of voters all over the place and they could be the decisive factor.

Another non-unintended consequence: campaigns will have to scramble “all over the place.” Good! And, yes, “voters all over the place”—not just in few places—will be “the decisive factor.” That’s the idea.

What if you have 48 percent over here and you have 47 percent over here? And .. out of nowhere … some celebrity or something who at the last minute gets five percent of the vote. If you have to have a majority to win, that person could hold the whole process hostage.

You don’t have to get a national majority to win under N.P.V. You just have to get more votes than the other guy, which is more than can be said for the status quo.

Both N.P.V. and the status quo are plurality systems. Under the former, you need a plurality of voters in the United States of America. Under the status quo, all you need is a plurality in just enough states to get you to 270 electors.

Here’s a nightmare example, unlikely but theoretically possible. Imagine a two-person race (plus the usual zoo of fringe third parties). In a certain set of states having 270 electoral votes, Jones gets 49 per cent to Smith’s 48 per cent. Everywhere else, Smith gets 75 per cent and Jones gets 22 per cent. The national returns:

Jones gets the Presidency. Smith, having won the largest percentage of the popular vote in American history, gets a line in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The danger of a fringe candidate holding the process hostage cannot arise under N.P.V. It can and does arise under the status quo. Remember, you need a majority (not a plurality) of the electoral vote to win. Otherwise the election gets thrown into the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote. This very nearly happened in 1968, when a notably unlovely regional candidate carried five Deep South states (two by plurality, three by majority) with a total of 46 electoral votes. If the Nixon-Humphrey totals elsewhere had been spread out a little more evenly, only one vote would have mattered: George Wallace’s.

_FOREMAN: It may be a great idea. It may be a great idea, but we’ll have to see.

SANCHEZ: We’ll have to see. Well done explanation as usual. Tom Foreman.

It is a great idea. And now that it’s beginning to get some big-time attention, it behooves the MSM, including CNN, to make their explanations a bit more well done.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. He regularly blogs about politics.